


Dating Tips (For Dating a Dipshit)

by Anonymous



Series: Meet Ugly Prompt Fills [1]
Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Alcohol, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Suggestive Language and Scenarios, Tumblr Prompt, Unspecified Quadrant, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Prompted on my tumblr: Lanque/Mallek: "we were set up on a blind date but it went horribly, so now you message me every time you have a good date because you think your tips will help me in the future, you ass."OR: Five times Lanque told Mallek what to do, and one time Mallek listened.
Relationships: Mallek Adalov/Lanque Bombyx
Series: Meet Ugly Prompt Fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631182
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52
Collections: Anonymous





	Dating Tips (For Dating a Dipshit)

_i._

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** If you’d had a career that Was more than sitting on your ass down in front of your husktop, maybe our date Wouldn’t haVe failed so spectacularly.  
  


You snort. “Date” is a strong word for “sit across from each other at a table, order drinks, and leave before the first course.” 

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** if you had a career at all; maybe you would have been able to hold a conversation;  
  
**Mallek:** besides petty insults and scathing commentary;  
  
**Lanque:** AW, you thought my commentary was scathing? That’s almost sWeet.   
  


You don’t bother responding to that one. The steady rhythm of your typing leads you back into your trance, but the buzz of your phone distracts you once again.

  
Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Sickeningly sWeet.  
  


And again.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** I mean, What were you expecting?  
  


And again.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** You chose a hole in the Wall restaurant. The Wall paper was peeling. Do I eVen haVe to giVe you my opinion regarding the choice to paper the Walls?  
  
**Lanque:** The music Was too loud.  
  
**Lanque:** Can you belieVe our serVer had the nerVe to light a candle on our table?  
  


You chuckle; that was pretty funny. The Withered Vine was atmospheric, that much was true, but it was far from romantic. The candle was corny. Which is why you told your server to light one. It’s not your fault your date had no sense of humor.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** The benches had _cushions_ , for the mother grub’s sake. 

His commentary is less scathing, now that he’s being honest, and more straight up cruel. It would almost hurt- you genuinely like that place- if you weren’t sick of this asshole by now.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** perfect for sitting my ass down in front of my husktop;  
  
  


You silence your phone before he has the chance to distract you again. With a crack of your fingers and a quick glance at your code to find your place again, you get back to work. 50ccs of psychic pollen for your upcoming apiary network should be arriving by tomorrow morning. _If_ you write your code right. After that, you should have enough mind honey to repay one of your clients. Hopefully by the end of the week.

Drone trackers show the congestion over the south plains. Most of these are routine deliveries: sea-bound drones carry face paint for the devout and dehumidifiers for the seadwellers; a few drones scatter as they bring imperially mandated uniforms to various shades of burgundy and brown trolls; all terrain drones carry traps and tripwires for the more feral, forest dwelling trolls. Standards always bore you. You zoom out, ignoring the light of your palm husk going fucking bonkers with notifications. With a huff, you flip it over to silence the flashing, and you go back to your study of the drone routes. 

Here's something interesting interesting, stuck in customs in the southwest valley. With a glance at your calendar, you confirm that it is, indeed, nearing drone season. It’s the easiest thing in the world to reroute a drone carrying concupiscent aids to the caverns. 

It’s slightly more difficult to rig the box to explode upon delivery. A shower of silicon, addressed to a certain Lanque Bombyx. A bulge box for a bulge block. A grin overtakes your face as your fingers fly and dance over the keys. Override commands make you more powerful than the empress behind closed doors. Fuck him and his stupid good dating tips.

You love your job.

_ii._

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** If you had to do it all again, What Would you Wear?  
  


Something hot and tingly lights up your chest, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Based on past experiences with this dude, you name this emotion “annoyance.”

It took him two weeks to text you again.

Well, that’s not strictly true. Amendment: it took him two weeks to text you about something _other_ than the bulge box again.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** do i keep my memories in this time loop;  
  
**Mallek:** if yes; then i would have worn my track pants  
  
**Lanque:** You oWn track pants?  
  
**Lanque:** That Was rhetorical.   
  
**Lanque:** Of course you do.  
  
**Lanque:** And that’s Why our date failed.  
  


A sigh escapes you. If you were feeling annoyed earlier, this is full-blown frustration. 

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** thought you said it was my career choices;  
  


You get a full two minutes of reprieve before he texts you again.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** There Were a lot of reasons.  
  
**Lanque:** Why track pants?   
  
**Mallek:** they’re loose;  
  
**Lanque:** So you Would go for comfort the second time around? ForgiVe me if I don’t belieVe that.  
  
**Mallek:** you kept getting up to go to the bathroom; presumably to stare at your own reflection;  
  
**Mallek:** track pants are loose; if you wanted to keep looking at an asshole, i could have dropped trou at the table;  
  
**Mallek:** it would have saved both of us a lot of time;  
  


There’s another pause. Snake dad comes up from behind you, nuzzling into your ankle before winding up your leg and into the pocket of your hoodie.

A hollow, paper shifting sound catches your attention. You look down and then groan in disgust: he’s shedding again, and it’s not the clean shed of healthy snake skin. Guess it’s time to find where your broom has been hiding for the past three months.

If your lusus had been still in your pocket, you might have noticed the buzz of your phone. As it is, you don’t respond to Lanque for another 20 minutes.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Where Was this Wit at the table, AdaloV? Acerbic.  
  
**Lanque:** AnyWay, all I meant Was your hoodie did nothing for your figure.  
  
**Lanque:** And usually, I like trying to figure out What people are hiding under their clothes. A little mystery intrigues me.  
  
**Lanque:** But you said eVerything I needed to knoW With What you had outside of yours.  
  
**Lanque:** The dorito dust suggested ‘slob’ and the outdated denim suggested ‘hiVebody.’  
  


The last text was ten minutes ago. You really don’t have time for this; worry about your lusus has worn your patience thin.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** at least my clothes were clean;  
  
**Mallek:** you showed up looking like a hangover’s worst day terror; what happened, the head jade finally got sick of you and sent you loungeplank surfing?  
  


The minute you hit send, you immediately regret your words. But you can’t take them back, so you take your mind off of them. You climb the staircase to your lusus’s rock hideaway hidden in the temperate depths of your glass attic, and you check the settings on the humidifier. In the corner is half of a mostly-intact snake skin; a sigh of relief escapes from you unbidden. It’s not as bad as you’d thought.

The smell of this room unlocks a scent memory; when you were younger, you used to collect the shed skin from your lusus and cover your old shoes with them. You can’t remember why you stopped doing that.

When you hear your phone buzz, you only lunge for it because you’re startled. That’s all.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Well, not in so many Words.   
  
**Lanque:** Wouldn’t you?  
  


His words hit you like a blow to the chest.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** no;  
  
  


He texts you quickly, saving you from the struggle of balancing your tone between ‘concern’ and ‘annoyance.’

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Strictly speaking, she didn’t either.  
  


Asshole. Here you were worried about the state of jade politics and responsibilities.

  
Lanque  
  


  
**Lanque:** I went to a friend’s party, and Bronya and I had a... disagreement.  
  
**Lanque:** I think setting up our blind date Was her Way of apologizing.  
  
**Mallek:** what are you talking about; elwurd told me about you; i’ve never even heard of bronya;  
  
**Lanque:** Ah, perhaps you might know her as The Ex? Capital T. Capital E.  
  
**Mallek:** this is a text based conversation; i can see the capital letters  
  
**Lanque:** It bears repeating. Bronya is, inconceiVably, the big bad in El’s loVe life.  
  
**Mallek:** wasn’t it more of a ‘hate life;’  
  
**Lanque:** WhateVer.  
  


Recognizing his favorite place, your lusus leaves your pocket to warm his blood under on the rocks. The moons are so bright tonight that you have to dim the heat lamp for him.

Lanque doesn’t text you again, so you pocket your phone again and, on a whim, join your lusus. He coils up, you spread out. The moons and the stars spread out above you, and you get lost in this space between Alternia and space, reality and dreams. 

You realize that you technically haven’t answered Lanque’s original question.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** if i had a chance to do it over;  
  
**Mallek:** i would wear my snake skin shoes;  
  


_iii._

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Location is everything.  
  


Oh boy, your favorite topic of discussion. Before you can form a response, you get a snapchat message from him. When did he get your snap?

Cold blood rushes through your veins. Before you lose your nerve, you open it.

Lanque stares into the camera as someone pinches his mouth open. You hear him laugh as that aforementioned someone pours a dark liquor in his mouth. His throat bobs as he swallows, a soft, satisfied hum barely caught by his palm husk’s microphone. You watch the gray swipe of his tongue across his lips before the video replays. 

Holy shit. Fuck.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** wow; if that’s the video i get after one date;  
  
**Mallek:** i might have tried harder for the second;  
  
**Lanque:** You Wish, bitch!  
  


What the hell.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** are you drunk;  
  
**Lanque:** I’ve had enough!  
  
**Mallek:** what the hell are you talking about;  
  
**Lanque:** I go on nice dates.  
  
**Lanque:** I send you tips.  
  
**Lanque:** Tips that should haVe worekd.  
  


He was sending you advice while he was on dates?

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** I’m sick and tired of being your  
  
Lanque is typing...

There’s a long moment before he texts you again.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Yuor tip boy! GiVIng you my good tisp!  
  


What an asshole. 

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** you need to calm down; where are you?  
  


The question is cursory; you had his palm husk’s location the minute he sent you that snap.

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** _Dancing in circles,_   
  
**Lanque:** _By chance have we touched,_  
  
**Lanque:** _Rhyming in shades of purple,_   
  
**Lanque:** _He says “damn bro that = sucks;”_   
  
**Mallek:** “that is sucks;”  
  
**Lanque:** You knOW What I mean.  
  
**Mallek:** i = cerulean;  
  
**Lanque:** “I is cerulean.”  
  
**Mallek:** heh; you know what i mean;  
  


The lyft should be arriving in a few minutes. This should buy you enough time to convince him to leave.

Lanque  
  
**Mallek:** i’m bringing you home dude; you’re wasted;  
  
**Lanque:** You  
  
**Mallek:**...are sending you home, yeah; look for a purple ford locust;  
  
**Mallek:** text me when you get home safe;  
  


He doesn’t text you for the rest of the night.

_iv._

Lanque  
  
**Lanque:** Tip: you should driVe your dates home at the end of the night  
  


Your response is curtailed by a harsh statement in gray: Lanque Bombyx has blocked your number.

_v._

...Not that it stops you. You know fifty ways to send him a text message without coding a single sentence. Twenty more _with_ the single sentence. 

Not that it’s going to do you much good. Judging by how fucked up he got last night, you suspect he’s suffering from a nasty hangover. 

The hoverboard buzzes beneath your feet, sending adrenaline throughout your veins. You’ve always loved the thrill of riding, fast and forward, forward, forward. Sometimes you wonder: if you go fast enough, could you skip through time?

As a bag of chips threatens to escape, you tighten the straps to your pack, bringing your speed down from ‘fast and furious’ to ‘reasonably fast.’ The caverns are beneath you before you know it.

Once you’re in front of them, though, you realize you came here without a plan. Are these even the caverns that Lanque lives in? How the hell did you plan to navigate a system of caves all by yourself? 

You sigh. The things you do out of guilt. You take out your palm husk, preparing to swallow your pride and text him before a jade calls out to you.

“Hello! Can I help you with something?” 

“Uh, maybe. Does Lanque live here?” Her face sours, nearly imperceptible if only she hadn’t been wearing such a friendly expression previously. That’s all the answer you need.

“We- my jades and I- are very busy right now. One: the brood has just hatched. Two: Lanque isn’t feeling so well, and he’s slowing us down. Three: it’s drone season and…” Her face flushes as she realizes the implications. “Oh! Are you…?”

“No!” You shout out quickly. “No, nothing like that.” The two of you laugh nervously together, doing your best to ignore the impending fuck-or-die scenario looming over the both of you. “I’m here to apologize.” You kick at your sack of hangover snacks.

“Are you sure it’s not the other way around?” She gives you a teasing smile as she leads you into the caverns. 

“Believe it or not, I’m the asshole this time.”

“Lanque has a way of making people feel that way,” she sighs before her smile turns wry. “We won’t have time for a break for-” she glances up at the moon. “Another hour now.” 

We?

“It’s cool. I can wait outside-”

“Wait? Oh, no. You’re here because you wronged one of my jades, aren’t you?” You nod. “If you want to apologize, you can help us lighten the work load.” She hands you a contraption that looks like a cross between a rake and a broom. “Just for an hour!” She calls as she pulls a breather mask over her face and descends into the shadows. 

“Nice piercings.” Another jade startles you from behind. She’s younger than you by about two sweeps and dripping with the disdain of an apathetic adolescent. You smile; you remember those days. 

“Yeah. Did’em myself.” You start… sweeping? The prongs in your cleaning device make the work tedious at best.

She sighs and grabs you by the wrists. “These are for cleaning up the cocoon silk.” She directs you to a cold, dark corner and plunges your broom into the shadows like a spear. It gets caught, held fast, before you and she combine your efforts to pull away a huge, white glob from the wall. 

“Thanks,” you turn to her and notice she has abandoned her silk broom against a nearby stalagmite. 

“Uh-huh. You have to scrub the wall to fend off malevolent lichens. There’s two on the east wall and another over there wedged in the stalactites.” With this, she sits down next to her silk broom and pulls out her palm husk.

“I thought we had an hour until we could take a break?”

“We?” She stares up at you, eyes heavy with disinterest, before going back to her palm husk.

Fuck.

* * *

Improbably, you find Lanque by literally bumping into him.

Even less probably, he’s struck speechless. He opens his mouth a few times, aborting sentences left and right.

“20 minutes to go,” you say, and continue cleaning. Lanque surprises you once more: he joins you, squinting heavily through what must be a headache.

It only takes him five minutes to figure out what to say.

“What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t text you back, so I came to see you.”

“You’re full of shit. I know you can-” Lanque is interrupted by a high pitched voice, swiftly approaching.

“Language!” A young jade with bouncy dreadlocks approaches with a pitcher of what appears to be iced tea. Her smile is bright and teasing, and Lanque lets out a terse huff.

“Don’t tell Bronya, but we wanted to take a break early," she says. Jades and their “we.” You’re getting sick of being out of the loop. Before she gets to clarify, a tiny honk comes from behind her before an even tinier clown pounces on her. You rush forward, prepared to help or pull him off of her or just do something, but Lanque holds you back with a firm hand to your shoulder.

“Why don’t you and Karako go play soldier purrbeasts somewhere else,” Lanque snaps, rubbing his hand over his eyes.

“Someone’s cranky,” the little jade stage whispers to, presumably, Karako. But the two of them do run off, and you’re left alone with Lanque, your hangover snacks, and a pitcher of iced tea. All in all, there are worse ways to spend your time in caves.

“Is this what you do in the caverns? Sweep and drink iced tea?”

“It’s not iced tea,” he says. He pours himself a glass in the fussiest way possible, holding his sleeve out of the way and twisting his wrist just so to avoid spilling a single drop.

“Wha- whiskey?” A little hair of the bark beast? It doesn’t seem like Lanque’s style.

“Bronya’s patented hangover cure.” It is whiskey? Why did Bronya let a wriggler carry a pitcher of 40 proof alcohol? Lanque takes a sip, and his whole face pulls into the center in a grimace.

Tentatively, you take your own sip. Not whiskey, definitely not. The taste is earthy and savory, a little musky. You might have mistaken it for tea if not for its lack of bitter undercurrents.

“Mushrooms,” Lanque supplies. “And benevolent lichen. And fungi.” He takes another sip. He makes another face.

“It’s...” you search for the right word.

“Disgusting?” Lanque offers. You laugh, and he smirks. 

“Here,” you dig in your bag before offering him a pair of ibuprofen. He snatches them and downs them in a greedy swallow. You pull out your bag of cheese puffs, too, and his stomach rumbles.

The two of you snack for a while, him silently and you retelling the tale of your adventure this evening. It’s comfortable, just sitting here with him. Talking about nothing.

You sneak a glance over at him. He’s sitting with his elbows braced on his knees, looking away. The sweat glistens on his brow, and you’re struck with that image of him from last night: his mouth open wide, his teeth as white as opal. You flush and blurt out: “I’m sorry.”

“What?” He looks over to you with disinterest, lazily raising a brow.

“That’s why I’m here: because I’m sorry. I said some shitty things to you and…” You trail off. “Can we start over?”

“I don’t think your snake skin shoes are going sway the points in your favor,” he says, but where his voice is ironic his smile is genuine. 

“Maybe they will. You’ve never seen them.” He huffs a laugh before sipping at his drink again. You wonder if it really does work; personally, you’d never voluntarily drink that stuff. You stare at him; he sets down his drink and tilts his head, challenging.

“What, not giving any tips tonight?”

He leans in, smile wicked on his face. He licks his teeth, looking down to your lips. He still looks miserable- ibuprofen and cheetos can only do so much- but he’s magnetic suddenly. You’re leaning forward, into him, and you’re powerless to stop.

“Learn to take a hint,” he says. His breath is blessedly cool against your face. Before you can form a response, or do something, or kiss him, he’s up and gathering your cups. He leaves you behind.

You have no idea how to get home from here.

_& i._

He gives you a second chance. You wear your snake skin shoes.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS ART MY FRIEND MADE REGARDING THIS FIC!!! https://kandayuu.tumblr.com/post/612084007717486592/thats-why-im-here-because-im-sorry-i-said


End file.
